Eureka! … Since 1981

Eureka! Classics | Philip Carey, a student of medicine meets Mildred, a waitress, in a restaurant, but she breaks a date with him to go out with a salesman. She returns to him, after a further relationship with a student, but this time she is pregnant, and Philip’s life becomes ever more complicated…

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Leslie Howard plays Philip Carey, a club-footed student of painting in Paris, who realises that his work will only ever be second-rate, so returns to England to study medicine. In a restaurant he meets, and falls for Mildred, a blonde waitress (Bette Davis), who breaks a date with him to go out with an artless salesman.

Carey meets, and is subsequently courted by, the sophisticated Norah but he cannot forget the waitress.

Mildred visits his apartment explaining that she has been deserted and is pregnant. Although Carey suggests marriage, she deserts him again, this time for Harry Griffiths, a fellow student. Mildred returns once more, this time with the child but, although giving her shelter, Carey refuses her sexual advances and she destroys his belongings while he is out. Bonds that he needs to finance his studies are among these items and he is forced to leave medical school and become a salesman – but he becomes depressed and his health suffers.

He is nursed back to health by Sally Athelny and her father. Later, he inherits sufficient money from an uncle to allow him to complete his studies and have corrective surgery for his club foot. On qualifying, his application for a job as a medical officer on a steamship to Australia is accepted. He learns that Mildred has been admitted to the hospital with tuberculosis but she dies before he is able to see her. Released from his emotional bondage, he turns down the job at sea and is now free to marry Sally.

This original movie adaptation of the tragic tale by Somerset Maugham is an exceptionally high quality production; and the remakes in 1946 and 1964 are very poor by comparison. Leslie Howard and Bette Davis give brilliant performances which are enhanced by John Cromwell’s sensitive direction.

The role of the vulgar waitress Mildred had already been turned down by Katharine Hepburn, Ann Harding and Irene Dunne but the talented Bette Davis adopting a Cockney accent (even off stage!) made this, her first major role, her own and she was rightly heralded as a star of the first order.